The Chronicle of a King
by Syunikiss Mizer
Summary: The dark, awe-inspiring, and triumphant tale of Gol D. Roger and his meteoric rise to the pinnacle of Piracy as well as his equally meteoric downfall.


The dark, awe-inspiring, and triumphant tale of Gol D. Roger and his meteoric rise to the pinnacle of Piracy as well as his equally meteoric downfall.  
>-Gold Roger x Rouge. Pg-13R for swearing, sexuality, violence, disturbing scenes. 

XX

**The Chronicle of a King **

_A fanfiction by Syunikiss Mizer & GeckoMoriaShdowLord _

XX

**Prologue **

The bells tolled throughout the city, somberly. Each sonorous peal could be felt as a fundamental reverberation in the chests of the thousands assembled that day to see the execution of the Pirate King. There must have been thousands upon thousands there that fateful day, all packed like sardines in the can, elbows digging into sides and feet trotting upon sensitive feet; but the air was hushed. Everything silent except for the endless tolling of the funeral bells and for the whispering noise which rustled through the crowd like wind through so much dry and withered leaves.

The procession had begun from the large jail a mile or so from the city's central plaza and it winded slowly, snakelike, through the packed and dirty streets of the city.

The city of the beginning and of the end. Lougetown.

He walked to his death with a strange species of pride and of resolution. He was already dying anyway. Better to die, elevated on a platform, with seastone handcuffs on his broad wrists and with twin lances piercing his heart and vital organs. Better to die as he had lived. Better to die like a pirate.

He walked with a slow and steady gait, wanting the crowds to take a good look at him, wanting to be remembered forever even after he had drawn his last breath, eaten his last meal, and dropped his last shit. Rayleigh had always accused him of a taste for flair, and Roger had never denied it.

Even now he could see a small brat gazing at him with his mouth open, looking like a perfect idiot. The smoky grey of the little one's hair was odd and stood out and Roger smiled at him, flashing the little boy a reckless, devil-may-care grin which he was sure the brat would remember for the rest of his life.

But already the little one was slipping behind him; the guards at his side were relentless. They wanted no mistakes, no signs of weaknesses, wanted the public to be assured that they could handle the notorious Pirate King Gold Roger. Just as if he had never showed up at Mariejoe and proclaimed himself open for arrest.

The sun blazed down at him but the chill was still in the very marrow of his bones, the sickness already distributed throughout his body. It was too late for him now. So he had taken the only option left of him—a memorable death. He had seen much, done much, lived a good and dangerous life, like a pirate should. He had no regrets about the decisions which he had made which had led him to this walk to the execution block.

The people watched him, their faces awed and quiet. And as his foot lifted to take the first step in the stairs leading to the top, he heard a soft sigh run through the audience. The Pirate King stifled a grin, lest he should ruin the mood. If he was going to die, then he was going to die with style.

The stairs creaked on his way up, restless under his heavy boots and his thick coat. The marines had wanted to deprive him of his attire, but Garp had stopped them, knowing full well that he could still have killed them all if they had dared to strip him. Good man, Garp.

He mounted the platform and one of the soldiers, his pale face swimming in his own sweat, demanded in a voice which wasn't quite stable, "Any last words?"

He lifted his arms out and mildly asked, "How about you take these off. They're itchy."

The soldier bristled, "I-Impossible! We will not risk you attempting to escape!"

"Ay, it's a little late to be trying to escape," Roger sighed, but moved on. He turned and thumped down on the solid wood platform, "Right, let's get this over with."

He enjoyed the immensity of the crowd—it seemed like his death was a popular event. The sea of people extended from the Plaza proper to every road that led to the plaza. The buildings around the plaza were teeming with people. He doubted if half could even see him, but assumed that it was the mere fact that they had been there that mattered. Briefly, he wondered what they would do to his body once his spirit had slipped from its mortal containment.

"Pirate King Gold Roger! Today on this day which will live in infamy, the World Government orders your execution for the high crimes of piracy which you have committed throughout your life! Today the World Government assumes the serious responsibility to protect the world and the seas from your crimes! You will be executed in the name of the people of the free world and in the name of the law and of justice!"

Roger mulled that over as the soldiers to the sides of him raised their lances, shining bright in the sunlight, and swept them to the side to signal their readiness to kill him.

The plaza was deathly silent and he wondered if they really would stay silent until his death.

He had only seconds now to think. And all he could see was the crowd and wonder where Rouge was and what she was doing and what she would think when she saw the newspaper the next day.

"_Heeeeey! Pirate King!" _

He lifted his head slightly, ears pricking. Someone was shouting from the crowd, except he couldn't see who it was, he was too far away and so it seemed as if the crowd itself was screaming at him in one lone voice.

"_Where did you put it? Where did you hide it! All the treasure that you spent your life collecting? The millions of gold? The massive—" _

The soldier on his right broke in, yelling harshly, "You! Shut up now or you will be arrested!"

But the man—the crowd—would not be stopped, "—_piles of jewels and gemstones? Treasure maps from around the world! Where did you hide your treasure—the greatest treasure in the world!—" _

The world hung on bated breath, anticipating. Even the soldiers seemed to realize that fate had fled from their hands and even they were straining their ears to catch the location of—

"—_the One Piece?"_

He exploded into laughter; big, hearty gusts of laugh which made his white and gold teeth twinkle from the reflections of the sun on his executioner's lances. The crowd, if quiet before, was deathly silent now and his peals of laughter carried easily. And because he suddenly felt that the last grains of his hourglass were fast slipping away at a sickeningly rapid rate, he shouted from the top, fast, rapid words of adventure, of romance, of destiny.

"_My treasure? It's yours if you can find it! Search for it! I left it all! I left it all in that place!" _

Too late the soldiers realized that he had sent the wheels turning on an entity which would prove to overwhelm them. Too late the soldiers realized that he had escaped death after all and that he was going to live forever. Too late they realized that they had killed one pirate and bred millions; that they had unintentionally set into motion something immense and infinitely powerful.

"_Executing now!" _

The plunged the lances deep into his heart and his last moments were not of regret as he had secretly feared but of a triumph beyond words, of a victory too immense to be described.

Even as his life's blood flowed from him and stained the platform a deep, royal crimson, he heard the lion's roar of the crowd and the crushing, overwhelming sound of the new era being born.

He rushed up, out of the world and out of this life and it seemed like he was hurling backwards into time because here were old faces, old scenes, memories he didn't remember. Back, back, back all the way until he had been a snot-nosed kid like the little fool with the smoky hair who had stood on the sidelines with that look of worship and he had stood in these same streets and had said—

XX

_Forty years ago_

"Someday I'll be a great pirate. A really powerful, nothing like these dumb weaklings that just want to rob some gold and hoard it up."

This comment earned him a glare from the bartender, "You talk big kid. Wait 'til you grow up—then you'll see that it takes a big man to become a pirate. Now let's get back to the bar, Roger. There's nothing to see here anymore."

The bartender had shoved him none-too-gently along and Roger tore his eyes away from the execution platform—not the same one that forty years later he would lose his life on, but its parent—and from the anticlimactic scene of the solders lugging the body of the recently deceased down the stairs. He ran ahead of the bartender, head full of the execution. The pirate had struggled all the way from the doors of Lougetown's gaol to the feet of the stairs. Roger had been humiliated by the show of the pirate, feeling angry and sad that the pirate had let himself be reduced to that level.

He turned back to the bartender and said confidently, with a trace of a grin, "When I'm a pirate, and when they catch me and execute me, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to laugh right up there. I'm going to laugh at them all."

The bartender grunted. "Shut up kid. You'll probably shit your pants like this one did. That is, if you ever become a pirate, and a pirate worthy of being publicly executed—an event which I highly doubt."

Roger snorted, "There's going to be millions that come to watch me die. And the government's going to have all the admirals and captains and Warlords out there to make sure I don't escape! I'll be the greatest damn pirate of them all, you'll see!"

"Watch your mouth kid, you've only seen seven summers,' the bartender laughed, scratching at his big beard, "And tell me, snotnose, if you're going to be so great, why the hell did you get caught in the first place?"

He laughed, "I won't! I'll just get tired one day and turn myself in!"

"Idiocy," the bartender muttered, "You're the biggest idiot I've ever met and I've met some big idiots. Now, hurry up, the men are going to start to come to the bars to drink a beer and talk about the execution. Empty the swill buckets and get the mop out to clean up the spilled beer or vomit—or blood. And don't you dare slack and hang around the men, listening to stories of pirates." He shrugged, "Piracy is a dead thing. It's not like the old days."

Roger scratched his ear as they entered the man's bar, "You mean before the 'blank century'?"

"Hush," the man said violently, and immediately softened his tone, "Hush Roger. Don't talk about that. I don't care where you found out about it, but don't speak about that, okay? Or I'll hide the skin off of you, you hear?"

He shrugged, "Sure."

"Now, let's get to work…I see some vomit underneath yon table. Go clean."

But as the men began to wander into the bar which the bartender had named _Gold Roger_ because of the orphan which had come to him two years ago, bearing that name on a small, golden locket.

Roger could barely remember the story, but the bartender told it to him often and Roger ran it through his head as he mopped up the filth from the bar's grimy floor.

The bartender would light a cigar and smoke it slowly, gesturing with his big, blocky hands as he spoke. _I was sitting outside the bar, painting the sign to my new bar, and it came to me that the name I had picked—The Rotten Apple—didn't have a good ring to it as I thought it would. I was just sitting there, mulling ov'r the situation. And then I felt your eyes on my back. _

_I turned and there you were, looking all of six years old, and a sorrier sack of shit I never saw. "Hey, kiddo." I say. "What do ya want?"_

_You didn't say anything so I say, "You got a name kid?" and you shook your head so I say, "You got family? momma? Poppa?" You shake your head again so I say, "c'mere kid, I'll get you some soda pop. Don't got much which ain't booze but I'll find you some nice, cool pop. Can't do much while I can't think of a good name for my bar which doesn't sound halfway decent. Know of a good name?" The bartender would grin at this point, "I was just teasin' ya at this point. No way you would know anything. But then you open your trap and say the first thing you said to me." _

"_Gold Roger." _

"_And I remember thinking 'that's effing perfect!' So I ask ya, "Where the hell did ya come up with that handle, kiddie?" and you pull out this tiny little locket from under your ragtag shirt and hold it up to me and you say, "That's what it says here." I take a looksie and I tell ya, "that doesn't say Gold Roger, kiddo. Close, but no dice." _

"_Your face fell and you say, "It doesn't?"" _

"_Can't read, tyke?"_

"_No," you say. _

"_Who gave ya that bauble, yung'un?" I ask ya, 'cuz I already figgered that that was your name and that yer mama must have put it there before she ran off with a pirate or died and left ya nameless and homeless." _

"_I don't know," ya tell me. _

_And I nod and say, "That's fine, it says Gol D. Roger, kid." _

"_Goldy?" you say, all doubtful. _

"_Naw, kid. Gol D. Roger. Yer name's Roger. Gol D. Roger. But that's kind of stiff and formal so we'll call ya Gold Roger. Gold—like the metal. Ya like that, tyke?" _

"_Ya shrug, "I don't care."" _

"_And being the fool I am I say, "Ey, kid, if ya got no place to stay, then why don't you sleep on the old pallet I have behind the bar? I got no family, no wife, no kids. I won't mind another guy helping around the place. I'm naming the place after ya, anyway. Least I can do fer a poor waif."" _

"_Yer face kind of lit up and you nod your head all happy-like. So I laugh and pop open a beer and say, "Let's drink on it." And that's how ya came here. Ya took to beer like a fish takes to water and maybe that's why I kept ya."_

Roger smirked as he reran the story through his head. He had lost that locket a long time ago, but it didn't matter since someday he would make the name Gol D. Roger famous. Someday. 

XX


End file.
